Butterfly Of Moon Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The sky-punctured stars
have spun half-arches
around splashes of light

in floating crystals
crowning a round moon.

The moon slips off
a bush of crystal stars
to find its center

in a hanging silver world
spraying earth with gold.

Moon, play no ball with me
tonight, as you sail
on wheels floating flames
of chiffon and gold-silver light

splayed on the white
screen of my dancing wall.

Moon, let your cornsilk
pearl and cotton sheets
drop gently to cover
the porcelain half-lit ceiling

of my floating bedroom
with your spidery, brushing
hands flipping over

with wings and arcs of more
light, as a breeze blows.

Are you landing in a full
attire of serrated flamingo
wings or the soft saw-
edged wings of a cream egret

with light flying across
my alabaster flowing ceiling, as
shadows of your legs land

on my milky pillow bleeding in
floods of daisy and powder?

(ii)

I'm half-sleeping, sailing
in a pool of moon light
flipping out cream and ashy
canoes to carry swinging
wall pictures, staying
in place, as circles and ellipses

of light hang down slowly
with broken sketches.

They're filled by a smooth cream
and gold spray of skipping
animals. How their gliding wings
fly into a crystal mass,

as a glass butterfly
crawling steadily over
me sprays before me

on my flowing floor, a carpet
spreading a cream rug
under my flowing bed.

O butterfly climb up to my bed,
as you brush me

with the soft powdery wings
to dip me in a warm hearth
of sleep floating on buzzing rails,
a breeze honking with me

in a train with the horned beasts
that prodded and mauled me,
as I ploughed through daylight.

Moon, let me snore in
in the rolling butterfly arms
of your cream hug
to let thorns burn in past
harmattan bushes in flames.